In the age of the Kindle, Kobo and all the future eReaders yet to be born, does anyone really need a bookcase? If the 1990s was the decade of the Ikea Billy bookcase, are we now entering the age of the docking station? If contemporary interior design has as its object the replacement of all one’s personal possessions with semi-industrial open-plan white space (see Grand Designs series 1 to 11), then perhaps books are now simply unnecessary clutter.

Yet, as with the fetishisation of vinyl by the fortysomething North London male, books and, specifically, their organisation and categorisation, have retained a sort of totemic significance. The art publisher Thames & Hudson is about to bring out two books (not available on Kindle) on the subject…